Book Review: Lost and Found

In the five years I've been writing this blog, I have talked a lot about my favorite things: Dixie, Charlie and Melody. I've also talked a lot about my least favorite things: unemployment, autism and exhaustion. Today we're branching out in a new direction: books. Specifically, book reviews that are through the book club section of the network my blog ads come from, blogher.com.

So, yes, I'm getting paid a bit. And, yes, this is still my honest opinion.

While books are one of my favorite things to talk about, this book is about most people's least favorite things to talk about: money and food. Specifically, losing both.

Oh, fun.

In Geneen Roth's book Lost and Found: One Woman's Story of Losing Her Money and Finding Her Life, an author and speaker who usually delves into the world of compulsive eating and spirituality takes on a new direction. She tells the story of the day her friend called to tell her the shocking and life-altering news: that Bernie Madoff had made off with 30 years' worth of savings, earnings and retirement.

Her description of that dizzying afternoon reminded me of the day my world changed. The day I laid on the bedspread, propped on my elbows, staring at the phone. I could not believe my husband, the supporter of all five of us, was out of a job soon.

There were times where I had trouble relating to a married woman with no kids struggling with money despite two incomes when we had three kids and no income. Somehow, still, our experiences were so much the same.

Roth describes the suffocating feeling of standing in a high-end clothing store with a friend who was excited about all the beautiful things around her while she was panicking at the thought of each and every price tag. I cannot tell you how many times I did this in Target or at the grocery store.


Different scale, same anxiety. Same need to re-center and find a new normal, which both of us eventually did. Her interpretations of spiritual life are far different than mine, yet we both needed to reexamine what we really needed in life and what our decisions about money say about ourselves.

Because so much of her adult life has been spent working through her own food issues and then helping others do the same, many of her reflections and thoughts tied in money, food and self. Roth states, "I saw there wasn't a huge difference between problems with money and problems with food: Most of the world doesn't have enough of either, but those of us who do seem to always want more and, for the most part, refuse to believe that the problems we are experiencing 'out there' originate--and need to be solved--'in here.' "

If money and food are internal struggles for you, she has provided an excellent framework for self-examination as she processes through her own struggle.

More discussion can be found here: http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/now-reading-lost-and-found